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Monday, 29 April 2013

Today is my birthday, so this week's Marvellous Monday is going to be a little self-indulgent, in that I shall share pictures that make me laugh!
I certainly need a giggle with the impending doom of another year on my age, so I hope you'll laugh with me! :)

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

In this bustling, throw-away society, it’s easy for clothes
to become tired, boring, or (with fashion’s ever-brief dalliances with retro
styles) frumpy.

It can also be pretty easy to bypass clothes because they
aren’t quite right--perhaps that skirt has a great print but an ugly style, or
that thrift-shop shirt has a stain on the cuff that looks rather permanent.

But there are so many easy ways to customise clothing that these
uninspiring, damaged garments can easily be turned into something stylish and
wearable, sometimes with only a few minutes work!

This post focuses on customising tops. Next week, I'll post about bottoms (not that kind, cheeky!)

Drab denim jacket into rockin’ waistcoat!

The makeover on this piece was incredibly simple. I hacked
off the sleeves and then brought out my ancient BeDazzler and added a bunch of
evenly-spaced gold studs from my stash!

Thursday, 4 April 2013

I'm procrastinating in writing this post. I could be making more jewellery, painting, photographing stuff for future Etsy listings, reading, or doing a whole ton of other things.

Instead, I'm here, because I feel like rambling about recent things.

Yesterday, I finally got around to making some business cards. I only printed 24 (it would have been 32 but the printer rejected the last sheet of card multiple times!) but I think that's enough for now. I will carry some in my bag, as I'm getting better at plugging my wares :)

I picked up this awesome fabric in the village charity shop recently. It's a tad under 2 metres and cost me £1.50. The picture doesn't show all of the black section at the top, but it's the print that really drew me to the fabric!

At the moment, I can't decide what to make out of it. My initial thought was to make a long skirt, because last summer I wore my long refashioned skirt loads.
But now I'm thinking that maybe I should try to make a maxi dress or kaftan instead. Argh, decisions, decisions...

Remember how I wrote recently of my slowly-drying Wreck This Journal? It dried, after around three days against the radiator. I had to keep turning the pages so it dried all the way through!
This is how it looks now. I'm getting to the point where it takes ages to find the right page (especially now they're wrinkled and bent and ripped...) so I added lots of little post-it slips to help me find my way!

Okay, this last picture has a bit of 'eww' value, so I'll hide it behind a handy 'read more'. For the curious, I burst a blood vessel in my eye...

This is from last Friday. Of course, due to it being the Easter weekend, with bank holidays left, right and centre, the doctor's surgery was closed! Instead, I went to the chemist on the Saturday, where the pharmacist recommended some eye drops. The redness has gone down slightly, but I was told that it could take two weeks to clear up! I might go to the doctor if it hasn't cleared up more by the middle of next week. My eye doesn't hurt and I can see just fine, at least!
Absolutely no idea how I did this, but at present the red blob looks a bit like a rabbit. Did the Easter Bunny visit my eye...?!

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Whilst flicking through a copy of Marie Claire, I saw a gorgeous statement necklace by Sweetlime. It
had everything: colour, texture, metal, textile, beads and a real ethnic, world
traveller feel.

It was £365. Trust me, if I had £365 to spend on a necklace
(or a couple of thousand, having looked at all the lovely things on their website)
I would be making a huge order!

My version

Thanks to my stash, I was able to make my own version of Sweetlime’s
‘Pom Pom Madness’ necklace. This took me
almost a day to make which proves that Sweetlime’s expertly crafted
jewellery is worth the money (if I could afford it!)

And here is the original from Sweetlime (isn’t it lovely?) Sweetlime
source parts of their jewellery from all over the world and a percentage of all
their sales goes to the Salaam Balack Trust, a charity that runs 24 hour shelter homes in India (read more about it
on their website, here). So you get karma
points with your unique jewellery!

As you can see, there are several differences, especially
when it comes to the beads. I was trying to stick to what I had, and ended up
only spending 50p on an extra bead (the blue glass one with the red swirls)
from Big Bead Boutique because that’s all I needed!

I didn’t have any nice ribbon and despite trawling the
internet and high street alike, couldn’t find any embroidered ribbon at all! I
ended up using embroidery thread to weave a friendship bracelet style ‘ribbon’
instead.

Okay, you’ve probably had enough of my rambling, right? Right!
On to the tutorial :)